Sleepwalking
by Disneymagic
Summary: Sam and Dean reminisce about some of the funny and scary episodes of Sam sleepwalking. Pre-Stanford. Rated T for mild swearing.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural, but I'm having a heck of a good time playing with it.**

**A/N: This story is written from two alternating first person perspectives. I'll let you know who's talking by putting their name in italics at the beginning of the section. Dedicated to all the people who enjoyed the little sleepwalking reverie in my first fic, Calming Technique. I hope you have fun with this one.**

**Sleepwalking**

**by Disneymagic**

_Sam_

Hey, my name is Sam.

Yeah, I know you heard that I sleepwalk and some of you are curious. I don't mind talking about it, I'm pretty used to it by now. It's just a part of who I am, you might say.

The first time I remember it happening, I was about five, I think. Woke up standing in the kitchen with my Dad shaking me by the shoulders demanding to know what I was doing out of bed and it scared the crap out of me 'cause I had no idea what I was doing out of bed, didn't remember getting out of bed, didn't remember coming to the kitchen, and had no reason to be there. So I started crying and with Dad's yelling and my crying we woke Dean up. The house we were staying at was small, the walls paper thin, and Dean has always been a light sleeper. He shepherded me back to bed and I think he must have made some kind of vow to never let that happen again 'cause ever since that night it's always been Dean making sure I don't wander around in the middle of the night like some kind of friggin' lunatic.

_Dean_

Whatever, Dude. You know as well as I do that Dad expected us to follow his orders, no questions asked.

When he said it was bedtime, we went to bed and that was that. No 'can I have a glass of water', no 'will you read me a bedtime story'. I think our bedtime was sacred to him, like he waited for it all day long.

When I heard all the screaming and crying going on, I knew immediately what had happened. It wasn't the first time Sammy boy here had tried to make a midnight run. Hell, it wasn't even the first time that night. He had already gotten up two other times and both times I had him turned around and back in bed before he could cause any trouble.

The thing is, I don't fall back asleep right away after one of these...episodes, it takes a while to clear my mind enough to feel tired again. So yeah, by the third time, I was exhausted, so sue me, I didn't wake up and he got past me.

_Sam_

Anyway, most of the time I don't even know when it's happened, but Dean loves to tease me about it, so he always makes sure to tell me every little detail the next morning, the jerk.

There's a reason I always wear sweatpants to bed. One time, when I was eleven, Dean and Dad were off on some hunt and didn't make it back until the next morning. That night, I made it all the way out of our two bedroom apartment and walked to the park down the street, in my underwear! Talk about humiliating. I woke up to the laughter of a bunch of teenagers. My face probably turned six shades of red before I managed to high tail it back home. It could have been a lot worse, I suppose, but still...

Maybe Dean should tell the rest of the story. He has the inside track and is actually awake when most of it goes down.

_Dean_

Hell yeah! So, I'm Dean, Sammy's big brother, but you probably already knew that, huh.

First thing you should know is that it's not just sleepwalking, the kid also talks a blue streak in his sleep and believe me, you do not want to share a bed with this guy unless you're itching for an elbow to the nose in the middle of the night. He's all over the bed, kicking, groping, I mean look at him, he's all gangly arms and legs.

_Sam_

Dean, I do not grope.

_Dean_

I'm just saying you move around a lot. Heh, Dad refused to share a bed with you after that one time, remember? What did you do, knee him in the crotch?

I thought he was going to land on the moon the way he shoot out of bed. It was always me that got stuck sharing a bed with the octopus after that night.

_Sam_

That's nice, just tell the story.

_Dean_

Fine.

When he was younger, he used to sleepwalk several times a week. Even now that he's a big boy ***smirk*** he still loves the night life. I'd say he sleepwalks on average once or twice a month. It was freaky at first, but it's not all that hard to tell when he's really asleep even though he's moving around and talking like he's awake. His eyes go all vacant and dull. All I have to do is get one good look at his eyes and I can tell he's not controlling the bus, he's on autopilot.

Most of the time, when he was little like that, I could just turn him around and nudge him back to bed with no problem, he'd just go willingly. Not always though, sometimes he got really upset and I'd have to talk him down before I could get him calm enough to go back to bed.

_Sam_

Hmmm, those are the times I'm acting out my dreams and everything feels so real. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of one of those episodes and its very disconcerting...surreal. I'll be so entirely sure that the house is on fire, or someone is trying to break in, or whatever the drama of the night happens to be. Everything I'm doing feels perfectly logical at the time and then...I'm awake...and I realize I'm acting like an idiot.

_Dean_

That's 'cause you are an idiot.

_Sam_

Shut up, Dean.

_Dean_

There was that one time, you couldn't have been more than seven, remember?

We were staying in a motel and he stood up on the bed and started screaming. Dad jumped up and grabbed his knife 'cause he thought Sammy was being attacked. When he realized there was no one in the room but us, he got worried that the yelling and screaming was going to wake the entire building up, so he put his hand over Sammy's mouth. Big mistake. Sammy went ballistic, wrenched himself away and wouldn't let Dad anywhere near him. Dad got frustrated after chasing Sammy around the motel room a couple of times, so I had to step in before he made things even worse. Dad was more than happy to let me handle it at that point.

By then, Sammy was huddled in a corner of the room with his arms over his head. I asked what I could do to help, but didn't try to touch him. Most of the time, I just go along with him until he runs out of steam. Makes him much less likely to get agitated if he knows I'm not going to fight him on whatever he thinks is happening. To him, it's totally real.

So, he told me the room was full of bees and they were attacking him. I opened the motel room door, shooed the 'bees' out of the room, and turned around to find the kid slumped over on the floor. Dad picked him up and put him back in the bed and that was the end of that.

_Sam_

Sounds pretty traumatic, right? I didn't remember a thing in the morning, couldn't figure out why Dad was so pissed at me. Sometimes I do remember though, if I wake up before Dean manages to get me back in bed. Like the time I was convinced we owned a cat and I was looking everywhere for it.

_Dean_

Yeah, that was lame, I mean really? A cat? It couldn't have been a cool pet, like a dog. No, it had to be a cat, a kitten in fact, if I remember right. Dogs are so much cooler than cats, dude.

_Sam_

You really gonna give me shit over that, now? I was like eight years old, man.

_Dean_

***snort* **Who's telling the story, you or me?

_Sam_

I remember this one, so back off.

As I was saying, I was positive the kitten was in the apartment somewhere, alone and scared, so I was determined to find it.

_Dean_

Sam, tell them the cat's name, you gotta tell them it's name.

_Sam_

***eye roll*** There's no way I'd even remember it's name if you weren't forever hounding me about it. Wilbur, OK, it's name was Wilbur. You happy now?

_Dean_

I'm ecstatic.

Wilbur like from that book for kids about the pig and the spider. It was friggin' hilarious.

_Sam_

Glad I amuse you.

_Dean_

Oh, you do.

He was wandering around the apartment, looking under the furniture, picking up couch cushions, and calling 'Wilbur, Wilbur'. At first, I was laughing so hard I couldn't see straight. I figured he'd get tired of looking after a while, no harm no foul. Dad was out for the evening and he wasn't disturbing anyone except for me. Then he started to panic. Who knew the imaginary Wilbur-cat was so important? I couldn't get him to settle down no matter what I did. I tried reasoning with him, I tried telling him I had already found the cat, I tried promising we would find it in the morning. Nothing worked.

_Sam_

I eventually woke up and knew that we didn't have a cat, had never owned a cat, and weren't likely to get a cat anytime in the future. Where the idea came from was a complete mystery. When I wake up like that...right in the middle of it...I feel as though I'm being pulled into a different dimension, off-balance and wrong.

_Dean_

And he gets real clingy, too. Won't leave my side, it's like having a second shadow for the rest of the night.

_Sam_

Dean! Again, that was when I was a little kid. You're gonna make them think I crawl into bed with you now, jerk.

_Dean_

I just call'em as I see'em, Sammy. What's amazing to me is how much you can sleep through.

_Sam_

I know.

You'd think that being really tired would keep me from sleepwalking, like my body would need rest so badly it would just turn off once I was able to go to sleep, but sleep deprivation actually makes it much, much worse, not only guarantees I'll sleepwalk, but also that I won't wake up no matter what Dean does to snap me out of it.

_Dean_

No kidding.

I remember one time after a grueling hunt, the three of us, me, Sam and Dad, stayed up all night digging up the graves of twelve cult members who had made a pact to kill themselves and haunt a clinic where medical procedures were being performed that went against their religious beliefs. I'm telling you, people are crazy.

After a full night of salting and burning, we had to vamoose before the local sheriff decided to come a-knocking on our motel room door. Dad didn't want to stop until we reached Kentucky where our next gig was waiting for us and Sam was too hyped up from the S-n-B to sleep in the car.

_Sam_

That hunt was pretty significant for me. It was the first time Dad let me come along on a real hunt, not just do the research and then sit in the motel room, waiting for Dean and Dad to get back. I thought he finally trusted me, but in retrospect he probably just needed all the help he could get with twelve graves to dig up in one night.

_Dean_

Sammy, c'mon. Cut Dad a little slack, huh.

So, with the fourteen hour drive to Kentucky, no sleep during the drive, and the previous fun evening of playing light up the cultists, Sam was stumbling around in a daze by the time we were checked in at the motel. I barely got him to eat one piece of pizza for dinner before he started nodding off at the table.

I admit, I was bushed myself and even though we had to share a bed that night, I still didn't wake up when Sam figured a shower was in order. We don't know to this day how long he stood in that shower, and not just any shower, the water was ice cold, I'm talking frigid. I woke up at 2:30AM to the sound of the shower running and no Sam on the other side of the bed.

I found him standing under the running water wearing the sweatpants he went to bed in and staring straight ahead, his face completely void of any emotion. He had goose bumps from head to toe, blue lips, fingers like prunes, the whole nine yards.

_Sam_

You can stop now Dean. No need to tell the rest of this one.

_Dean_

Awww, c'mon now, Sam, don't be shy. It's not nice to start a story and leave your audience hanging.

I turned off the water and tried to wake him up for a good fifteen minutes, 'cause he couldn't go back to bed in dripping wet sweatpants. After all, I had to share that same bed and I really am not a fan of wet sheets.

He was unresponsive other than the shivering, just stood there while I toweled him dry, used the towel to chaff the goose bumps off his skin and get a little color into his face, all the while I'm talking to him, pleading with him, to wake up. Nothing. So, I had to...

Huh...I see what you mean. Really no macho way to come out of this one for either of us, is there?

_Sam_

***Blushing*** No, Dean, there isn't.

_Dean_

All right, I'm just going to push on through then.

Calm yourselves, people. He was just a kid.

I had to strip him and get dry clothes on him. He was tractable, unlike other times, he did what I told him to do and I got him back in bed easily. The funny part was that as soon as he warmed up under the covers, he turned to me and asked why his hair was wet. 'Why's my hair wet, Dean?' like it was my fault or something.

_Sam_

I was still asleep, 'cause I didn't remember any of it the next day.

Some of these experiences are amusing, great for a few laughs over beers with friends, but others are scary and down right dangerous. Stress is also a huge factor in whether I'm going to sleepwalk on any given night. The more stress I'm under the better the chances are that I'll be wandering, but also stress makes the episode more likely to become violent. You can imagine, with my lifestyle, I'm stressed out most of the time.

_Dean_

Uh huh. Just last month was the worse one I've experienced, and believe me, I've been through plenty. I know how to handle Sam, I've been getting him through these incidents since he was five years old, but this one, was almost beyond me.

_Sam_

Handle me? Dude, you make it sound like you're a wild animal trainer or something.

_Dean_

That's what it seems like sometimes, Sam.

I woke up to the sound of Sam's voice. He was screaming at someone, but no one else was in the room. He said 'You can't fool me, I know what you really are.' The next thing I knew, he had my handgun pointed towards the corner of the room, the empty corner of the room. I thought I knew what was going on, but I wanted to get a look at Sam's eyes to make sure. I mean, anything's possible in our line of work and I couldn't ignore the possibility that an invisible creature lurked in the corner of our motel room.

I asked him what was going on and he assured me I didn't need to worry about it, he had it covered. I was reassured all right, my little brother was holding a gun on invisible assailants, why worry? He did flash a brief look at me over his shoulder and that was enough to tell me most of what I needed to know. His voice spit emotion, but his eyes reflected no spark of true awareness.

Now usually, like I said before, I would go along with the charade, play my part until the drama ended and I could talk Sam into going back to bed, but this time the stakes were a bit higher. Sam had a gun and there was no telling whether he would decide to use it or not. I needed to get the gun away from him before we found out the hard way.

Using my calmest tone, I told him if anyone was going to pull the trigger, it needed to be me and I eased as passively as I could over to his side, holding my hand out for the gun. Instead of relinquishing the gun as I had hoped, he swept his arm out to the side and pushed me behind him. I lost my balance and involuntarily grabbed a hold of his arm to keep from falling. Next thing I knew, Sam yanked his arm out of my grasp and turned those vacant eyes in my direction, looking right through me. The gun swiveled around to rest against the side of my head and he said 'Not you too, Dean. I thought at least you'd be on my side.' His voice sounded lost and betrayed.

_Sam_

God, Dean. I'm so sorry. I hate that I did that to you.

_Dean_

Sam...don't beat yourself up about it. It's not your fault.

I told him that I was always on his side. It's always been the two of us against the world and it always will be. He lowered the gun, but didn't lose the haunted tone when he said, 'Not always. Sometimes you take Dad's side against me. I can't take it, Dean. It's killing me that you let him order you around.'

_Sam_

It's true, you have so much potential. Don't let him squander your life on his twisted dreams, man.

_Dean_

Not now Sam, just...let me get through this story.

Anyway, the gun dropped to the floor then and Sam twisted to face the still empty corner, like he just remembered the invisible assailant. Dad chose that moment to come back from the bar, three sheets to the wind, and left the motel door wide open, while trying to focus on the scene in front of him. Sam yelled 'shit' and took off through the open door at a dead run. Sam's long legs can chew up distance like no one's business, but when he's sleepwalking, or sleeprunning as the case may be, he's not at his most coordinated. And that was a very good thing on that night, 'cause Sam was running full tilt onto the expressway, which despite the late hour, was still plenty busy. I caught up with him just as he reached to edge and pulled him backwards by the waistband of his sweatpants.

_Sam_

Another very good reason to wear sweatpants to bed. We need to add hiding all the weapons before we go to bed to the list.

_Dean_

Ugh, dude, now I can't get the picture of what I would have had to grab a hold of if you weren't wearing sweatpants out of my head.

_Sam_

My arm would have worked, Dean.

_Dean_

Oh, thank God.

So, I told him I took care of 'it', never specified what 'it' was, since I didn't know and I didn't want to set him off again. Sam became docile as a lamb, let me guide him back to the motel room. He just looked wiped out. I could empathize with that. A close call when we were supposed to be resting, it doesn't get any more oppressive than that. Of course, Sam didn't know about the cars rushing past on the expressway, had no idea how close he had come to being a splotch on the pavement. That knowledge was mine and mine alone. Needless to say, I didn't go back to sleep that night. Sam started babbling from the bed, just a bunch of nonsense, unrelated to anything as far as I could figure out. Dad was mostly oblivious to the whole thing, passed out on his bed. He doesn't drink often, but when he does...well, let's just say he doesn't do anything halfway.

_Sam_

A lamb? What's with all the animal comparisons? Seriously though, Dean, you saved me. I know Dad's constantly telling you it's your job to look out for me and I don't exactly make it easy on you, but...thanks, man.

And to anyone out there listening, you don't need to feel sorry for me. I know it sounds screwed up, but I've accepted this part of my life and it's OK, really. Plus the sleepwalking incidents seem to be decreasing as time goes by. I'll be going to college soon, so life will be less stressful and maybe they will stop completely. That's what I'm hoping anyway.

Anything else to say, Dean?

_Dean_

***sigh*** No, I'm good.

The End.

**A/N: I did a couple hours of research into sleepwalking for this story. Interestingly, up to fifteen percent of people have experienced sleepwalking at some point in their lives and some people really do sleepwalk as often as several times per week. Spouses/partners, parents and brothers/sisters often have their own sleep disturbed by sleepwalking members of the family.**


End file.
